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Water damage/Collapsing ceiling

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emceneaney

Junior Member
I live in Los Angeles and have been renting a 2 bedroom apartment with my girlfriend since April of 2010 under a 1 year lease. We live on the top floor in a 2 story, 4 unit building.

In September of 2010, after the first rain of the season, our kitchen experienced a leak coming from the light. This caused the light to discontinue working and the leak eventually stopped after the rain had passed. The landlord/apartment manager was notified about the leak, and through a lot of back and forth emails, phone calls, and text messages the maintenance guy came to "repair" the leak and another maintenance guy was called out the following week to replace the light.

All was sound until the next rainfall in October. This time, the leak came from the same light in the kitchen as well of through cracks in the doorway to the kitchen. Again the management was notified, and again we went through the same annoying routine of waiting for a replacement light in the kitchen.

It was around this time that I had begun to suspect that nothing had really been done about the source of the leak from the roof. After experiencing yet another leak in December and more frustrating attempts at getting the apartment management to really FIX the problem, they decided to put a giant tarp on the roof.

The tarp kept the water from the rain in January and February until it blew off the roof a few weeks ago. We notified the landlord ASAP. No action was taken right away- they replied back and said they would sent maintenance to fix it the following week.

Well, guess what? LA was hit with a rain storm 2 days ago and we woke up to MULIPLE leaks, not only in the kitchen but ALL over the living room. Frantically I began putting down a total of 7 buckets, but it was useless. Countless bubbles of water forming on the ceiling grew rapidly- one even grew to the size of giant turtle, bursting open with brown/rust colored water, pieces of sheet rock and debris from the roof. The smell of mold made us feel sick (headaches mostly) and in a matter of one day our apartment was ruined, unlivable. We called management, but they said "there's nothing we can do, because it's still raining."

The structual damage is (in my opinion) so great that it seems too dangerous to live there, even if I wanted to. NOW I'm forced to look for a new place to live because I believe there is no way this will be fixed quickly and I also believe the exposed mold and moldy water coming from the ceiling is posing some serious health hazards.

(Let me also say real quick that I have documented every correspondence between myself and management and have taken countless photos and video of the damage between September 2010 and now.)

In the meantime we plan on getting the LA housing dept. to inspect the apartment and we need to stay in a hotel.

MY QUESTION IS:

Hopefully the property owners will comply with paying for us to stay at a hotel and giving our security deposit back NOW... but if not... (which is something I can imagine they would try and pull), what steps should I take? These are obviously slum lords I'm dealing with. I don't exactly have money for a lawyer. My case is strong, and the maintenance crew have agreed to back me up on this. They are responsible for this disaster for being cheap *******s. Should I threaten to take to court and see if that forces them into playing nice? The discussion between us and them has been started.

What I'm thinking is this: tell them what I require to live (hotel) and be forced to move out(cost of moving, etc); if they don't comply, threaten to sue.

Thanks in advance for any feedback or thoughts and advice.

E
 



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